We were all young once, but it is rather obvious that only a select few EVER improve... We all hold thumbs that you are one of them Keags...

Then on to the "bite" thing. As we all know, a Tarantula will bite anything other than prey, but only in defense. The fact that your "bite list" is this long is concerning. My immediate thought is, "why did so many Tarantulas defend themselves in your presence?" I personally don't see that as an accomplishment, but then again, I am very old, and you are not...

Ceratogyrus wrote: As for the bite afte handling a "hot" species, there is a wonderful saying in Afrikaans: "As jy dom is, moet jy suffer"

Or it is also said there is no pills for stupidity

@Keags - I am new to the hobby, but my first instinct is NOT TO SCARE THE T's. It is like any other animal, most only attack (bite in T's case) when they feel threatened. So may be handed the T's less or start slowly in future.

I have a suspician that if I was a T,I would also be on that list, with a huge tarantula 'grin'.

We were all young once, but it is rather obvious that only a select few EVER improve... We all hold thumbs that you are one of them Keags...

Then on to the "bite" thing. As we all know, a Tarantula will bite anything other than prey, but only in defense. The fact that your "bite list" is this long is concerning. My immediate thought is, "why did so many Tarantulas defend themselves in your presence?" I personally don't see that as an accomplishment, but then again, I am very old, and you are not...

I'm with Scarab on this one.

I had a bit of an experience this week while rehousing my P. striata female

She's about 12cm at the moment. While trying to get her into her new enclosure...

she ran up my arm over my back and down to my leg, stopped at my knee turned around and ran up my shorts :blink:

Long story short She had me out of my shorts and only then she was willing to go to her new enclosure :blush:


Sorry mate but if you have been bitten so many times, you must certainly realize that you're doing something wrong

I have had many spiders that have forced me to handle them, same as the striata female , which include P. reduncus, L. violaceopes MF and MM, P. ornata and many more and I have not been bitten once by any of them

I can't believe that I'm that lucky, It must be you mate :silly: :blink: :whistle: :pinch:

stopped at my knee turned around and ran up my shorts / She had me out of my shorts

Yap, that's a female alright...

I am yet to encounter an animal of any nature that would "just bite". It's ALWAYS either hunting, stress or self defense. I have been diving with Great White Sharks more than I care to remember, not even THEY "just bite" humans for no reason, so why would a Tarantula?

You have to be pretty freaken skinny to be mistaken for a cricket I guess...